Way back on May 31st, we reported that 94 WIP was finalizing a Mike Sielski/Jody McDonald duo to replace Ray Didinger on weekends. The pair would split up Saturday and Sunday and each work one shift alongside Glen Macnow.

I’m not sure why two months went by before it went public, but this morning the announcement finally came, with Glen going on the 94 WIP morning show and saying this, in part:

“Every Sunday is going to be me and Jody… And one of the things I loved about Ray is that Ray was a journalist. He was a writer, more than he thought he was a radio guy. Ray never thought he was a radio guy, right? Ray was a guy who was a journalist and I really wanted something new and different. I wanted somebody with strong opinions. I wanted somebody who knows how to craft an argument… I wanted something who creates content outside of here… someone in the loop and Angelo the Saturday show will now be me and the best damn sports columnist in town, from the Inquirer, Mike Sielski.”

I think this makes a lot of sense for WIP. We all know there is no replacing Ray Didinger, who brought so much to the table in the institutional knowledge department, but the combo approach here checks a lot of boxes.

This is a portion of what I wrote in May:

…this approach will give the listener something old and something new at the same time. You really can’t go wrong with the Mac and Mac reunion, which we’ve heard numerous times over the years, but never on any kind of permanent basis. And in the case of Sielski, he’s an experienced columnist who can talk about all of the local teams, though he’s also a little younger than your average WIP veteran and could possibly bridge that demographic gap between classic radio listener and Twitter type.

One of the things people liked about Glen and Ray is that they did straightforward sports talk without the cornball hot takes and faux-contrarianism. Jody is largely the same in his approach and Mike I think is a guy who will be pragmatic as well. The weekend show doesn’t feature a lot of vapid listener phone calls and there’s a more erudite feeling to the whole thing, if that makes sense.

Sielski will begin with Macnow this Saturday.